Manny Machado Trade Rumors: Monday
2:40pm: Outfielder Brett Phillips is one prospect who could go from the Brewers to the Orioles in a potential trade package, reports ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick (via Twitter). Phillips doesn’t have a clear path to playing time in an outfield mix that has Lorenzo Cain, Christian Yelich, Ryan Braun, Eric Thames and Domingo Santana, but he’s more or less big league ready and could give Baltimore a potential replacement for Adam Jones in center field. Crasnick notes that Jones, a free agent at season’s end and a trade candidate in his own right, wouldn’t stay in center field beyond 2018 even if he ultimately returned to the O’s.
Phillips, 24, is in his second season at the Triple-A level and has batted a combined .280/.359/.498 with 23 homers and 20 steals through 716 plate appearances at that level. He entered the season ranked as the game’s No. 80 overall prospect, per Baseball America.
9:34am: Morosi now tweets that in addition to Buehler and Verdugo, the Dodgers are also unlikely to include Ruiz in a trade for a rental player.
8:50am: The Manny Machado saga continues to be the focal point of Major League Baseball’s rumor mill and appeared to take a step forward over the weekend. Seven teams have reportedly made offers for Machado, with the Dodgers and Brewers now reported to be the most serious suitors. Today, MLB.com’s Jon Morosi takes a look at those top two teams and the manner in which each lines up with Baltimore as a trade partner.
Morosi echoes a prior report from USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, writing that he hears Dodgers Class-A right-hander Dustin May is of particular interest to the Orioles. So, too, is Double-A catcher Keibert Ruiz, whom Baseball America recently dubbed the No. 26 prospect in all of baseball. It’s not clear how willing the Dodgers are to part with either player, though Morosi notes that L.A. would be reluctant to trade away either Walker Buehler or Alex Verdugo for a half-season of Machado (or any rental player).
The Brewers, however, appear to be a better fit in terms of the type of MLB-ready arms that they can offer, Morosi observes. Corbin Burnes and Luis Ortiz are both on the cusp of MLB readiness (to say nothing of Brandon Woodruff), and the Brewers have multiple players with MLB experience that have been back and forth between Triple-A and the Majors this season, including Orlando Arcia, Domingo Santana and Keon Broxton.
Meanwhile, Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com reports that some of the teams who’ve approached the Orioles have expressed interest in package deals involving both Machado and one of the Orioles’ relievers — Zach Britton, Brad Brach and Mychal Givens, specifically. The Orioles are open to packaging Machado and Britton or Machado and Brach in order to enhance a potential return, per Kubatko, but the team’s preference would be to hang onto Givens, who is controlled through 2021.
It’s certainly easy to understand why the O’s would prefer to hang onto Givens, whose stock is down from last year thanks to worsened control an a half-mile-per-hour dip in his average fastball velocity. There’s no urgency to trade him as there would be with Brach or the struggling Britton, each of whom is a free agent at season’s end. If Givens is finishes the season strongly or turns things around in 2019, his value could take a substantial step forward given that remaining club control. Of course, there’s also a case to be made that the O’s should be amenable to the idea of trading virtually anyone on the roster, given the poor quality of the farm system and the sizable gap between them and the Yankees and Red Sox — not only in 2018 but over the next few seasons as Baltimore reshapes its roster.
Manny Machado Trade Talks Have Reportedly Accelerated
Though there’s still four weeks until the 2018 non-waiver trade deadline, trade talks surrounding Manny Machado have “accelerated” in recent days, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (subscription link). The Orioles, according to Rosenthal, would prefer to move Machado “sooner rather than later,” as they can extract more in a trade if the acquiring team controls Machado for three months as opposed to two months.
To this point in the summer, the teams most connected to Machado have been the Dodgers, Phillies, Diamondbacks and Indians. The Brewers and Cubs have been more loosely tied to Machado on the rumor mill, though Rosenthal reports that while Milwaukee is doing its due diligence, the team is unlikely to meet Baltimore’s asking price.
That, it seems, could be true of the Phillies as well. MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki reports that the Phillies should be considered “longshots” in the Machado trade sweepstakes. Zolecki writes that while the Phillies “love” Machado and plan to make a serious run at him in the offseason, the team doesn’t feel itself to be one piece away from a World Series. That, of course, makes it considerably more difficult to meet what is likely a rather lofty asking price from the O’s.
Rosenthal suggests that the D-backs and Indians could be the “most motivated” teams in the Machado market, and Zolecki, too, specifically lists the D-backs as a club likelier to acquire Machado than the Phillies.
USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, meanwhile, tweets that the Dodgers continue to “aggressively” pursue Machado, adding that the Orioles have been scouting L.A.’s system heavily and are particularly interested in Class-A Advanced right-hander Dustin May. There’d obviously be more at play than a mere one-for-one swap, but May, a third-round pick in 2016, is generally considered to be among the Dodgers’ more promising young arms. He’s off to a strong start in 2018 as well, having pitched to a 3.18 ERA with 9.1 K/9, 1.7 BB/9 and a 54.1 percent ground-ball rate through 65 innings (12 starts).
Of course, there could still be other organizations involved in discussions. Jim Bowden of The Athletic tweets that eight teams have had at least some engagement with the O’s regarding Machado within the past ten days. That would suggest that there are at least a few mystery teams hanging around the periphery of talks.